U-Boats Attack!: The Battle of the Atlantic Witnessed by the Wolf Packs

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INTRODUCTION

U-BOAT LOGBOOKS

Anyone studying the Second World War will quickly discover that many facts seem to get lost in a deliberate perpetuation of myths; in fact it is easy to find that a high proportion of well-established stories are totally without foundation. Many historians, even those who publish their results on stone epitaphs, seem to be happy to repeat figments of the imagination and, to make matters worse, even embroider these with their own fantasies. Those who do check original records discover very quickly that a number of well-established facts seem to be based on material first presented by the Allied propaganda systems, rather than on events of the war. Eyewitness reports, so favoured by the media, are even worse. Many come entirely from the deepest imagination rather than fact. The stories in this book are different. They are based on original logbooks, written at the time when the action unfolded.

War logs (Kriegstagebücher or KTB) differ from ordinary naval diaries in that they were regarded in Germany as legal documents and had to be signed personally by commanders every four hours. In addition to the main log, officers also carried small observation books for recording personal information.

As far as is known, there were only two cases where logbooks were deliberately falsified. The most famous is the first ship (the Athenia) sunk by a U-boat during the Second World War. Hitler ordered this incident to be eradicated from the records and the crew sworn to secrecy. The other incident took place during the Spanish Civil War, when some U-boats operated off Spain as part of an international peacekeeping force. It would appear that there are logs indicating that boats were in the Arctic seas, while in reality they were off Spain. Changing the logs in this case was thought necessary because the information in them had to be handed over to foreign governments participating in the international peacekeeping activities.

At times it is exceedingly difficult to interpret the words written in logs and there have been a number of cases where, long after the war, senior officers could no longer understand what they themselves had written in the heat of conflict. Naval terminology and code words are not easy to follow.

Recent high-level public inquiries have made people aware that some important leaders are allowed to be ‘economical’ with the truth. This means they are allowed to deliberately withhold information in order to mislead the general public. This must have happened during the war as well and one wonders how many things were spotted but not recorded. However, for most of the time one can take U-boat logs as an accurate account of what happened and it is very interesting to compare them with logs kept by the opposition. Often the Allied reports and the U-boat logs fit snugly together, like a perfect jigsaw puzzle. Of course all these logs fell into Allied hands after the war and there is evidence that some pages, possibly containing critical information, were then removed.

The accounts in this book are based on original U-boat logs. The additional annotations come from the large number of files in the International U-boat Museum (Formerly U-boat Archive) in Cuxhaven-Altenbruch (www.dubm.de). Allied information comes mainly from the secret Anti-Submarine Reports released by the British Anti-Submarine Warfare Division of the Naval War Staff. These were issued each month only to officers involved with hunting U-boats.

Once a U-boat returned to port, staff from the U-boat Command would have interviewed the commander and added comments to the log. Following this, six or seven copies were made and generally distributed as follows:

1. Operational Flotilla,

2. U-boat Command,

3.&4. Supreme Naval Command,

5. Second Admiral for U-boats (Training and Administration),

6. AGRU-Front (Units responsible for final training of U-boat crews),

7. 27th U-boat Flotilla, responsible for training.

The Supreme Naval Command not only employed a large staff to file the logs, but also sent terse letters to flotilla chiefs when they found any unaccounted periods in the logs. Even when the boats were being repaired in ports, the skeleton crew was expected to record what was happening.

Although Hitler ordered all logs to be destroyed shortly before the end of the war, Naval Command took the view that it had nothing to hide and therefore did not pass on these instructions. As a result American forces captured a vast stock of German naval records towards the end of the war. Many of these logs were later microfilmed (on 35mm film) and made available through the American National Archives. There is a complete set in the Deutsches U-Boot-Museum. I am most grateful to Horst Bredow for allowing me to dig through his archive and for helping in interpreting the complicated language of the logbooks. Much of what is in them has been discussed with ex-U-boat men and I am also most grateful to everyone who has helped with the interpretation of the logs. Photographs have come from the author’s collection and from Deutsches U-Boot-Museum in Cuxhaven-Altenbruch (www.dubm.de).

1

COMMENCE HOSTILITIES AGAINST ENGLAND

Readers might cringe at the use of the word ‘England’ in the title, but this old generic name for the United Kingdom has been used here to keep the atmosphere of the period. Even long after the war, Germans were happy to use terms such as ‘English soldiers from Scotland’, when describing the first British troops in the shipyards of Hamburg.

During the middle of August 1939, U-boat flotilla commanders were ordered to implement the Three Front War Programme for a possible conflict in the Baltic, North Sea and Atlantic. This involved moving as many units as possible out of ports to prevent them from being locked in by superior blockading forces. Kptlt. Alexander Gelhaar recorded the exact details of how U45 perceived the start of the war. Like many other boats, U45 left the Elbe estuary on 19 August 1939, two weeks before the beginning of the war, in order to take up a waiting position in the North Atlantic among the column furthest west from Ireland. Of course, in addition to these official orders, crews were also well within range to receive normal radio broadcasts.

25 August 1939: 1714 hrs

Notification was sent to all units at sea that special announcements were due to follow. The reason for such a warning signal was that many merchant ships did not man their radio room all the time.

27 August: 1830 hrs

Received via the German Ocean Weather Forecast:

To all German ships.

Make use of all advantages to reach a German port during the next four days. If this is not possible then go to a Spanish, Italian, Russian, Japanese, Dutch or other neutral port. In no circumstances make for the USA. From Naval Command.

31 August: 2100 hrs

The following decoded signal was handed to the commander:

1. Start hostilities against Poland in home waters on 1 September at 0445 hrs.

2. Not certain how the western powers will react.

3. Should the western powers declare war then our own forces are to react only in self-defence or on receipt of special orders.

4. Pocket battleships are to remain in their waiting positions; no attacks, not even against Polish ships.

The pocket battleships at sea were: Admiral Graf Spee with a supply ship in the South Atlantic and Deutschland with a supply ship in the North Atlantic. They were not given permission to commence hostilities until the end of the month.

3 September: 1226 hrs

The following decoded signal was handed to the commander:

To all Atlantic units.

Commence hostilities against England immediately.

Same day: 1743 hrs

To all Units from the Naval War Staff.

Since 1700 hours France has considered itself to be at war with Germany. For the time being our own units may engage only in self-defence.

5 September: 0042 hrs

A general radio broadcast reported the sinking of the passenger liner Athenia and shortly after that came:

To all Units from the Naval War Staff.

On orders from the Führer, passenger ships are not to be attacked, even if they are sailing in convoy.

7 September: 2054 hrs

The following decoded message was handed to the commander.

To all units from the Naval War Staff.

All boats from 6th and 7th U-boat Flotillas, except U53, are to make their way back home at the fastest possible speed allowed by their fuel reserves via the north of England without regard of other boats’ operations areas. Take advantage of any attack opportunities as long as these comply with operation orders. New operation orders make this return necessary.

Thus a few simple radio messages plunged the world into war for the second time within about thirty years.

Alexander Gelhaar and his entire crew returned home only once. U45 was the 6th U-boat to be sunk during the Second World War. It went down on 14 October 1939 with all hands during its second war voyage as a result of having been depth charged by the destroyers HMS Inglefield, HMS Intrepid and HMS Icarus.

2

MINING THE LION’S DEN

U26 set out before the beginning of the war with a sealed envelope containing orders from the Supreme Naval Command to lay mines in the approaches of Weymouth Harbour on England’s south coast.

The small staff controlling the U-boat war in the west arrived unexpectedly in Wilhelmshaven at around the same time as Britain and France declared war on Germany. There the only available space was in rather depressing wooden huts by a road leading to a military cemetery called Toten Weg. These may have been close to a substantial communications bunker, but this isolated conglomeration of naval offices still felt like a definite comedown. It was on the landward side of the town, a long way from the dockyard and even further from Germany’s only purpose-built U-boat base. The squalid huts were nowhere near as prestigious as the highly mobile depot ship Erwin Wassner, which the staff had just vacated in the Baltic Sea. But then, the last weeks had been exceptionally hectic and the confusion created by the unexpected war preparations made the unavailability of more suitable accommodation understandable. The U-boat Command’s new control headquarters in Sengwarden were still under construction and would not be ready for some time, so the men had no alternative other than shrugging off the inconvenience and hoping their stay would not be for long.

The location didn’t even have the feel of the seaside. Only the persistent squawking of gulls gave any indication there might be salt water nearby. The men had not yet settled in when they realised that the huts had one great advantage: they looked too unimportant to make them a bombing target. The war had hardly been a day old when the pocket battleship Admiral Scheer shot down a Vickers Wellington, clearly demonstrating that the old imperial naval base was no longer out of reach of the enemy. Admiral Scheer hadn’t gone to war with the rest of the fleet because much of the internal machinery was being dismantled for a major refit.

The light cruiser Emden also brought down a plane, but this one crashed onto the forecastle, making a hell of a mess and causing some loss of life. An irate officer threatened the unfortunate gunner with court martial, saying he should have waited for orders before opening fire. Kpt.z.S. und Kommodore Karl Dönitz, (Führer der Unterseeboote – Flag Officer for U-boats), took more than a casual interest in the controversial gossip. After all, four years earlier he had commanded the Emden, and had been looking forward to a promotion which might offer him the opportunity of leading a whole cruiser squadron. Instead of such a highly-regarded step up, he was shunted into these squalid huts, commanding a tiny band of stinking submarines. Dönitz was pleased that the arrogance of the irate officer was not his concern. His U-boat men didn’t cultivate that sort of short-sightedness. During the four years since leaving Emden, he had been able to create an enthusiastic elite where common sense, self-discipline and perfect teamwork displaced the majority of bombastic naval regulations.

Dönitz knew that many people would be forced into adjusting their thinking. Things were definitely going to change and a good number of officers were in for a big shock. The arrogance of some juniors and the loftiness of many seniors had been making him uneasy for some time. How could anyone think that an aircraft with British markings dropping bombs on the town was not an acceptable reason for a rating to open fire? The peacetime routine, which demanded unquestioning automatons, was no longer appropriate. Dönitz had often told his superiors that the navy needed more quick-thinking men. He had survived the First World War and knew this one wouldn’t go away again in a hurry. He was also certain that they were going to be exceptionally lucky if they were still alive when it ended. He had seen it all before. He knew it was going to be a long slog and that Britain was an unforgiving opponent. A military cemetery, with graves from the First World War, was just a few minutes’ walk from the new headquarters and anyone doubting Britain’s determination needed only to take a few steps to see the memorials to the masses that had died twenty-five years earlier, when the pathetic European leaders were so stupid that they ordered their best men to kill each other.

The war plans, which the Supreme Naval Command had ordered two weeks earlier, were not to Dönitz’s liking. He wanted to make drastic changes. His argument was that if Britain had started evacuating children and valuable racehorses from London, then vulnerable targets would also have been withdrawn from the sea lanes before declaring war. Therefore the U-boats might as well be brought home to refuel and be ready for when British ships reappeared. There was no point having submarines at sea doing nothing. However, Dönitz’s visions for a U-boat war couldn’t be fully realised either. An embarrassing shortage of torpedoes meant that the U-boat Command would also need to fall back on the navy’s generous stock of torpedo mines. The difficulty was that the majority of commanders who had been trained in laying these mines were now driving boats without the necessary mine laying modification to the torpedo tubes.

One of the boats already at sea with a load of torpedo mines was U26. Both Dönitz and Eberhard Godt (his chief of operations) considered the proposition in detail, wondering whether it might not be better to bring this boat home with the rest. Finally Dönitz decided against the move, although he still hated the idea of approaching so close to harbours. He had succeeded in cancelling another mining operation and diverting the boat (U53 under Kptlt. Ernst-Günter Heinicke) into the Atlantic. But despite this, U26 sailed with orders from the Supreme Naval Command to mine the approaches of Weymouth harbour on England’s south coast. Intelligence suggested the port was likely to be earmarked as a wartime emergency disembarkation point for transports, but the high-ranking officials in Berlin seemed to have forgotten that this was also the home of the British anti-submarine school and it was therefore likely to have the best defences against U-boats. Dönitz didn’t like sending his men so close to the lion’s den, but he wasn’t in full control and also had to obey orders.

U26 was one of only two boats belonging to the infamous Type IA, a class that had been replaced by the more stable Type VII. Both U26 and U25 had the disgusting habit of collecting air bubbles in their diving tanks and in bad weather they rolled about, adding to instability problems. In addition to this, when diving quickly, the centre of gravity seemed to creep forward, encouraging the boats to continue turning in a massive loop. This might be an impressive aircraft manoeuvre for amusing crowds at displays, but it was somewhat nerve wracking when 1,000 tons of submerged steel tried the same performance on its own. It proved especially irritating during chaotic alarm dives when the engineering officer could momentarily lose sight of exactly where the centre of the earth actually was. To make matters worse, this was Kptlt. Klaus Ewerth’s first cruise with U26 and there hadn’t been time to get him acquainted with the machinery or the men.

This last point didn’t particularly worry Dönitz. The 32-year-old Ewerth had been in the navy since 1925 and had been with submarines since before the Diktat of Versailles allowed Germany to own them. Then, when U-boats first reappeared, he became commander of U1. He was one of the old guard; precise, confident and capable of tackling anything. Ewerth was a quiet type who was respected because people liked him, not because they were impressed by his gimmicks or by the piston rings on his sleeve.

The Second World War was one week old on 10 September when the news spoiled Dönitz’s Sunday lunch; the fact that it took two days for Berlin to relay the information made him even more furious. After all, one of the main naval communications bunkers was just a few yards from his office. The shattering news arrived just before midday, when the Supreme Naval Command phoned to say that two days ago the BBC had reported a successful attack against a mine-laying U-boat in the English Channel and French radio had confirmed the news a few hours later. Two days! Two whole days later the Supreme Naval Command casually told the Flag Officer for U-boats. Dönitz wasn’t the type to explode, but he had adequate vocabulary to ensure that the admirals were aware of his views on the system. This snail-like communication wasn’t good enough. Godt wasn’t so sure about his boss’s brash approach and wished he would choose more diplomatic language when expressing his feelings. He could see the admirals clipping Dönitz’s wings by shoving him sideways into a post where he would be less of an embarrassment.

The boat in question had to be U26. There were no other boats in the English Channel. Dönitz usually did not take his fury out on the men around him, but on this occasion he cursed Godt as well. Yet before slamming the phone down, it had already occurred to his quick-thinking mind that this couldn’t be the straightforward sinking that Berlin was making it out to be. How could the British know that the submarine was laying mines? TMB mines (Torpedo Mine, type B), with time-delay fuses of several days, were ejected through torpedo tubes, making it impossible for anyone to work out what the boat was doing. Those tubes were submerged, even when the boat was on the surface – no one could see what was popping out of the ends. In any case, mines would have been ejected from a submerged position or from the surface during the darkest of nights when observers would have had problems spotting the low silhouette of a conning tower. So how could anyone know what the U-boat was doing? Had the crew been captured? No, he couldn’t accept it. The intelligence people were having him on. The news had to be worse than Berlin made out. It couldn’t have been a case of someone just sinking a U-boat. The Royal Navy could well have been on board! Otherwise how would they know about the mines? Did the crew talk to British interrogators? The potential consequences were spine chilling. Every boat carried a full library and if the opposition got into U26, then U-boat Command could write off every other U-boat operation there and then. For a start, it would give the Royal Navy the positions of all other boats and the radio code settings for the coming month. This problem could be overcome in future by sending mine-laying boats out with just enough documentation for one objective, but U26 was also carrying six torpedoes for the Western Approaches, which was considerable hitting power to sacrifice. U26 had enough supplies and fuel for a whole month, meaning that she could remain at sea until mid-October; therefore it might be a while before the U-boat Command could discover what was really going on in the English Channel. Ewerth was the sort of bloke who had often disappeared during manoeuvres and then popped up, unexpectedly, just at the last moment; making Dönitz think he was probably still alive. He would have phoned home the moment he started running into trouble and his whereabouts became known to the enemy.

A couple of weeks earlier, on 29 August 1939, U26 passed through the smallest locks in Wilhelmshaven on a bright, hot summer’s day. It was midday and the beach was already full of people taking advantage of the brilliant blue sky. The thought that some of them could well be on the payroll of the British navy had crossed the minds of more than one person. Ewerth was determined to give such characters a good run for their money. It was fairly obvious that someone would be keeping tabs on the traffic in and out of the naval base. Everything had to go through the locks and then along the narrow channel leading out into the North Sea, so it wasn’t difficult. After making the usual trimming dive, U26 quickly resurfaced. Ewerth was determined to maintain the standard procedures, but he wanted to make sure watching eyes didn’t lose track of the U-boat. Following the deepwater channel, U26 made for the distinctive red and white rocket-like lighthouse at Roter Sand (Red Sand), but Ewerth didn’t go that far. Remaining within sight of the island of Wangerooge, he turned left towards the west, heading straight towards Dover.

Keeping the low outlines of the German Friesian Islands in sight, the boat continued its leisurely pace, but six hours later, when passing the Norderney lightship, the entire crew had been placed on a war footing. Ewerth closed in on Borkum, the last of the German islands. He wanted to get as close to Holland as the 3-mile limit allowed. Anyone with an interest in the boat leaving Wilhelmshaven might also have a set of eyes among the low sand dunes there and it would be helpful if observers thought the boat was heading west. Ewerth had planned drastic action. Shortly after dark, U26 made a sharp right turn and headed north. Fishing boats, the occasional destroyer, aircraft and an assortment of merchant ships were avoided by diving or by changing course. The North Sea seemed busier than usual. But it didn’t matter. U26 remained unseen as it nosed into the colder, rougher waters of the Norsemen.

Ewerth was the perfect naval officer, a good weapons delivery man, outwardly calm, doing his duty and not allowing his innermost thoughts to interfere with his objective. A few days ahead of him was Kptlt. Herbert Schultze in U48. Although two years his junior, Schultze carried a totally different attitude. For a start, he had been with his men for longer and therefore was able to trust them better, and he had no qualms about committing his thoughts to paper. His dislike for the German radio propaganda was plain for all to see. What’s more, even after the beginning of the war, U48 openly tuned in to the BBC and Schultze recorded his praise for the high standard of the British news service.

‘Our own news is too simplistic and too transparent,’ he wrote, ‘and virtually unbelievable.’ Neither Dönitz, nor anyone else in the high command was left in any doubt about Schultze’s contempt for the poor quality of broadcasts coming from Berlin. Ewerth however allowed himself to make only one open criticism (which was more for his own good than for telling his superiors what he thought of them). In his log he pointed out that messages to U-boats were being transmitted with accuracy and precision, but the meaningless fill messages to confuse outside listeners came over in such a slovenly manner that any radio operator could easily tell the difference.

The monotonous routine in U26 continued until the boat was drawing close to the Shetland Islands. Shortly after midday on 3 September the engineering officer appeared on the bridge, dodged a bit of spray and cursed. Then he told Ewerth that the British declaration of war, announced only minutes earlier by the radio, would need to be postponed. The oil pump lubricating the port diesel engine was giving trouble, which meant that it should be shut down for a while. Ewerth was prepared for even worse. He had noticed the nauseating clanking, but wasn’t going to let such setbacks get him down. Instead he used the opportunity to practice an emergency dive and then gave his men the security of the depths for a peaceful lunch, after which engineers wrestled with the machinery.

The pump was quickly repaired, but the next problem was far more serious